by Jaye McKenna
“Okay,” Damon said. “I can maybe help you there. Let me check your records.” He swiped a finger across his slate, and studied the screen. Two full minutes went by before he said, “Hmm… I don’t see any reason why not. You’ve had it before with no serious side effects.”
It made my stomach feel funny, Miko signed.
Luka murmured the translation, and Damon said, “It makes everyone’s stomach feel funny. We’ll try it this once, but it’s not something we can do often. Anarin’s really hard on your body. Maybe you and Luka can work on some kind of shielding pattern that would make it easier?”
Shielding patterns don’t work, Miko explained. What I feel isn’t psi. Everything I get from Rafe is through the mythe, but on a level that I can’t block out and can’t reach. Maybe… maybe it’s where we used to be connected. Maybe that’s why I can’t shut him out. I’m not supposed to be able to.
Damon nodded at Luka’s translation as if it made perfect sense. He and Luka had both been in the mythe with Miko once, and had a better appreciation for it than most people did. They both understood that sensitivity to the mythe was far different, far deeper, than any kind of psi.
“That must be rough, man,” Luka said softly. “For both of you.”
Worse for him, Miko signed. I don’t miss what I don’t remember having. But Rafe… he’s been missing me for most of his life.
When Luka had finished translating that, Damon said softly, “I wish there was something more I could do for you. A shot of Anarin will only give you a few hours. Let me go grab an injector and we’ll get you set up. Is… is Luka going with you?”
Miko glanced at Luka.
“Up to you,” Luka said. “Last thing I want to do is intrude, but if you want someone at your back, I’ll be there for you.”
I’ll be all right, Miko signed. I’ve seen him alone before. I can do this.
Luka hesitated for a moment, then gave Miko a dubious look. “Cam’s gonna skin me if you end up lost in the mythe again.”
I won’t. I promise. I can’t touch the mythe on Anarin.
Damon gave Miko the shot and invited him and Luka to wait in his office while it took effect. It only took twenty minutes or so for the feeling of oily blackness seeping through the mythe to fade. Muscles he hadn’t known he’d been tensing gradually loosened and relaxed. Miko breathed a quiet sigh as the tightness across his shoulders eased for the first time since Rafe had arrived on Aurora.
“Guess I don’t have to ask if it’s working yet,” Luka said. “You look more relaxed than you have since the day we found him. You sure you don’t want someone with you?”
I’m sure. He won’t hurt me.
On Anarin, Miko couldn’t feel Luka’s doubt, but he saw it clearly in the slight frown wrinkling Luka’s brow. “Good luck, then. Come find me later if you need to talk. I got a training session in a half hour, but I’ll be free after that.”
Miko thanked them both and headed for the apartment Cameron had assigned to Rafe. It was all the way across the residence building and two floors below his own, though it wasn’t far enough to make any difference to Miko’s discomfort.
Anarin did, though. He couldn’t feel a thing from Rafe or anyone else. Couldn’t feel the mythe or the net or any of it.
Rafe looked surprised when he answered the door, but he stepped aside and invited Miko in, careful to stand far enough back that he wouldn’t accidentally brush up against Miko. “What are you doing here?”
Miko flushed. He’d been so focused on getting the Anarin and facing Rafe, he hadn’t even thought about how he’d communicate with him. Maybe he should have taken Luka up on his offer, after all. Giving Rafe a sheepish smile, he touched his throat lightly and shrugged.
Black eyes widened as Rafe got the message. “Oh… yeah. Well, you could use my slate… or you could write stuff down. Just until I learn more signs, though.”
Rafe was learning to sign?
As if he’d heard the question, Rafe slowly formed the signs for Hello. It’s good to see you.
Miko grinned as he mirrored the signs, and Rafe broke into an answering smile.
“That’s about as much as I know,” Rafe said. “I found a class in the Institute’s education library. Been working on it whenever I have time. You want to talk? You can put that text-to-speech app on my slate if you want. You can even pretend to type while you make it talk.”
He couldn’t do that on Anarin, though, and Miko was a terribly slow typist. He rarely had occasion to use a keyboard, so he hadn’t bothered to learn. But it was the only way he could have a conversation with Rafe, so he nodded.
Rafe grabbed his slate from the table, where it looked like he’d been studying, and Miko followed him into the sparsely furnished living room. There was nothing on the walls. In fact, it looked exactly like Miko’s apartment had when he’d first moved in.
Miko took a seat at one end of the couch, and Rafe hung back, keeping as far away as he could get. Miko found the text-to-speech app. It would be slow, but it was all he had.
I wanted to talk to you without hurting. When he entered the text, a voice spoke the sentence. It wasn’t as good as the voice synth, but it wasn’t bad, either.
“I don’t… I don’t understand.”
You don’t have to stand so far away, Miko typed slowly. I took Anarin.
“Why?”
Miko swallowed hard and typed, Because you wanted to hug me. He set down the slate and got to his feet. Rafe remained rooted to the spot, so Miko crossed the room and stood in front of him. Rafe’s dark eyes searched his face for a long time before he slowly moved toward Miko and wrapped his arms around him.
Miko stood stiffly in Rafe’s embrace. He felt nothing, and as much as he hated hurting Rafe, he couldn’t bring himself to return the hug. Doing so felt dishonest, and he didn’t want to lie to his brother.
“You… you still don’t remember,” Rafe whispered as he pulled away. “It’s like getting a hug from a stranger.”
Miko bit his lip and nodded.
“You didn’t have to drug yourself, Miko. But it means a lot to me that you did. Thank you.”
Back on the couch, Miko typed, I’m sorry I can’t hug you back. I don’t like being touched.
The color drained from Rafe’s face. “Because of… because you were… Oh, hell, Miko, I didn’t even think.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “I’m sorry.”
I’m sorry, too, Miko typed. I thought maybe I could, but I can’t.
“It’s okay. Look. After we get my new ID done and I’m finished training, I’ll see if Cameron can find me a job someplace far away from here. Maybe if I’m on the other side of the planet, I won’t hurt you so much.”
I wish it could be different. Miko set the slate down.
“Yeah. Me, too,” Rafe whispered.
Miko was glad he couldn’t feel the pain simmering in Rafe’s dark eyes or see it flickering through his mythe-shadow.
* * *
Cam lay on his side, staring into the fireplace, head pillowed on Draven’s chest, fingers brushing lightly across the sprinkling of coarse, black hairs. Sex and wine had made him sleepy, and his eyes kept drifting shut. Outside, the wind howled around the cabin, and the snow was still piling up. Didn’t matter. He was safe inside, snug, warm, and comfortable.
“I could fall asleep here…” he murmured.
“Warmer here than upstairs,” Draven said, tugging the blanket up over their bare shoulders and tucking it around him.
“Mmm. This is good.”
“The wine?” Draven reached for the glass they were sharing and took a sip. He held it for Cam to take a drink, then set it carefully down on the coffee table next to the couch. “DeMira would never have tolerated a local brand at his table. His wine always came from the French vineyards on Earth.”
“I know. I remember the bar in my suite at the Paris estate. All Earth imports. One bottle worth more than a month’s salary. I wasn’t talking about the wine, though. I meant t
he company.”
There was a long pause before Draven said, “I… don’t think anyone’s ever said that to me before.”
“Not surprising.” Cam tilted his head to stare up at him. “You’re a little scary.”
“Scary? Yesterday, you said I was cute. Make up your mind, Asada.”
Cam grinned. “You were cute yesterday. And today. But I was pretty damn scared that night you went into my head and told DeMira I had a riptide habit when I was a kid. I thought I’d buried that stuff so deep, nobody would ever find it. I knew if you’d found that, you’d found everything, and I was just waiting for you to kill me. Couldn’t figure out why you didn’t.”
“I almost did.” Draven shifted his gaze to the ceiling. “It was a near thing. Miko stopped me. He kept insisting you were the one who would save us both. I couldn’t imagine how you were going to do that, but… I’d known Miko for three years at that point. Long enough to know that I could trust him on that, even if I couldn’t see how it could possibly play out.”
“God.” Cam was wide awake now. He’d always believed it was him saving Miko, not the other way around.
Draven was still staring up at the ceiling, and he didn’t look the least bit sleepy. How much of the wine had Draven actually drunk? Cam had certainly had enough to loosen his tongue and soften his judgment. Enough to give voice to a question that had been nagging him for seven years. “What are you and Miko to each other? Not lovers. I got that.”
“No, never that. Brothers, maybe, like you and Kyn. We… helped each other survive. He taught me how to keep the mythe at bay. The rumors about DeMira’s crazy shooter… they were true up until I met Miko. I’d never been able to shut it out before, but he taught me how. In return, I did what I could to protect him.” Draven let out a long sigh, picked up the glass, and drained it. “It was never enough, though. I was as much a slave as he was. I couldn’t stop them from hurting him. All I could do was make sure he got to Trinian as soon as they were finished with him. And give him a shoulder to cry on when I could.”
“I’m glad he had you,” Cam whispered.
“I wish he’d never needed me,” Draven whispered back. “Thank you for taking him out of there, giving him a place here.”
“You could have had a place here, too. You could have come with us.”
“No.” Silky black hair slid across Cam’s shoulder as Draven shook his head. “I couldn’t. Not then. Your FedSec masters might have offered me sanctuary, but I would have had to give them something in return. I… couldn’t have turned DeMira in to them. Not then. I still hoped that maybe… but I was too old for him the moment I hit twenty. I knew that, I think, but I didn’t want to see it. I… guess I needed absolute proof.”
“You must have gotten it,” Cam said, thinking about the news vid of the blaze that had killed both DeMira and Vorzana.
“Oh, yes. When I was on Lyra, I was responsible for Dominick Romani’s security. When I woke up after the accident, I found myself at DeMira’s mountain retreat — you know the one — where we interviewed the Paris staff.”
“I remember.” Remembered Draven shooting a traitor in cold blood, too, though he wasn’t about to mention that.
“DeMira came to see me after Trinian had healed my body. He told me Alan Romani had sent me back to him in a cryo-tube, and that Sergei and his youngest son, Dominick, were both dead. He wanted answers. I… didn’t have them. It was months before I saw him again. I stayed at the retreat all that time, under guard. Trinian came out every week or so to supply me with riptide. I used as little of it as I could, but even out there, it was hell, and it wasn’t getting any better. By the time DeMira came back, I still couldn’t shield, and I was addicted to the stuff.”
“Jesus.” Cam might have been in Draven’s head, had access to his memories, but he hadn’t touched most of them, hadn’t known any of this.
“He asked me what use I was,” Draven murmured. “I told him I could still shoot. And Trinian told him I might still be able to do more than that, but he had to give me more time to heal. She bought me a few more months. Then he got impatient. Wanted to see for himself what was left of me. So he took away the riptide and took me out into the heart of Paris.”
Cam winced. He knew exactly what the city of Paris felt like to an unprotected psion: like a scream that never faded; like broken glass scraped over raw nerves.
Draven told the story in a flat, emotionless voice, but Cam sensed the agitation underneath that calm veneer, the pain of the memories. He reached for Draven’s hand under the blanket and gave it a squeeze. There was a long pause before Draven squeezed back and continued. “He gave me more riptide. Told me how disappointed he was that I’d failed Sergei and Dominick. Told me if I wanted to earn back a place on his staff, I could do it on my knees. Then he gave me to Vorzana and told him, no limits. That was when I knew. He didn’t care. Maybe never had.”
Nausea curled through Cam’s gut, and he tightened his hand around Draven’s. He remembered the slimy feel of Vorzana’s mind all too well, and hated to think what Draven must have endured at his hands.
“When Vorzana was done with me, Trinian healed me. The next night, I burned the estate to the ground.”
“He pushed you too far.”
“Yes. I… didn’t know I had a limit until that night.” They lay there in silence for a long time before Draven said, “You know all about that, though, don’t you? You had to do the same thing. To your own father.”
Cam shivered. “You… saw that?” he whispered.
“I saw everything, Asada. You know that. All your secrets.”
“And all my regrets,” Cam murmured.
“Those, too,” Draven agreed.
“It… wasn’t so bad until our mom died. After that… he was so angry. Every night, he wanted to hit something. Someone. I made sure it was me. When he started in on Eleni… I guess that was my limit. I spiked his booze with riptide. Enough to kill him.” He was shaking, his vision blurring. He’d never told anyone what he’d done, not even Eleni, though he was sure she suspected.
“I know.” Draven shifted onto his side, amber eyes searching his face.
“Yeah. But I never… I never said it out loud before.”
“I know that, too.” Draven brushed his thumb across Cam’s cheek, wiping a tear away, then pressed his forehead against Cam’s. “A secret for a secret,” he whispered. “I sat on the hill and watched DeMira’s mansion burn. I wanted to hear him scream. Him and Vorzana, both.”
“Did you?”
“No. They were both drugged.” There was a long silence, then Draven said, “I had nowhere to go. I was taking so much riptide, I’d be dead soon. But I couldn’t stop thinking about what you said to me the night I let you and Miko go. I… I’d never asked anyone for help before.”
“I’m glad you did.”
“Never had anyone I believed would help me. Until you.”
“You trusted me?”
“All your secrets. Remember?”
“I remember.”
Draven leaned in and kissed him. “I’ve… never played this game before,” he whispered against Cam’s lips before drawing back to stare into his eyes.
“Me, neither.”
“I don’t know the rules.”
“We’ll make them up as we go along.” Cam pulled him closer and kissed him.
Chapter Eight
Hot water pounded on Cam’s back as he deep-throated Draven in the shower. Draven was pressed against the tiles, legs braced apart, fingers gripping Cam’s hair, curses falling from his lips. The veneer of the cold assassin was gone, vaporized by the heat blazing between them. Sexy as hell, he was, and Cam had never enjoyed watching a man fall over the edge so much.
It always looked like a fight — Draven fighting his body, clawing for that last shred of control, even when caught up in the throes of passion.
The final surrender was one of the most beautiful things Cam had ever seen. Draven let out a strangled cry and shud
dered with the force of the climax. Cam stared up at him, enthralled at the sight of the most dangerous man he’d ever met rendered helpless. He could listen to those cries of desperate pleasure for hours.
And he had.
Three days they’d been holed up here in the cabin while the storm shrieked and howled outside. Three days, and he still wasn’t tired of touching that body, or of watching Draven come undone when he did.
Three days, and they’d done little but eat, sleep, and fuck.
Draven’s fingers tightened in his hair, and his eyes opened and fixed on Cam. He started to say something, but the phone Cam had left on the counter played the tone he’d set for Neil Iverson at Central Command.
Cam got to his feet. “I have to take this.”
“Come back when you’re done,” Draven said, sliding a hand down Cam’s chest until he was palming Cam’s cock. “I haven’t finished with you yet.”
Cam stepped out of the shower, ardor rapidly cooling. If Neil was back, this brief interlude he’d enjoyed was over.
Neil sounded tired as he informed Cam that he needed him out at Central Command as soon as possible. He and Senator Cottrell had gotten in late last night, and there was much to discuss.
After Neil cut the call, Cam stepped back into the shower and pulled Draven into his arms. “My boss is back. I have to go.”
“I gathered.”
“Things are about to get busy. I… might not be able to spend much time out here. Whatever the Federation Senate has decided, there’ll be meetings and… and probably a lot of work. Some of it I might be able to do from here, but I suspect I’ll need to be out at Central Command and on the campus a lot for the foreseeable future. I was planning to do a supply run in the next couple of days, but I may have to ask Kyn to do it instead. You… you’ll be all right by yourself?”
“I’ll be fine,” Draven said. “Go. Do your job. Take care of your people and your Institute. I’ll be here when you get back.”
“Will you?”
Draven arched one dark eyebrow. “Where would I go?”
